Buy an amber/red filter or not?

[Empty V]

Well I took my first U/W pics on Sunday: http://www.scubaboard.com/showthread.php?t=153064

It was overcast and I don't have a strobe yet, I'm going to mount my light cannon on it for now. Anyways, should I buy the filter for my housing? Will that eliminate some of the color correction I'll have to do later?

Thanks

 

[alcina]

Filters can work wonders but you need even more light as they rob ambient light. There are rumours of a new filter coming out later this month for compacts - Alex Mustard's (et al) Magic Filter. It looks fabulous and I would consider this option when it becomes available.

In the meantime I would concentrate on getting as close as possible (remember that you can be too close and your camera won't focus, so you need to find this distance by practice - shoot, review, adjust, shoot,reveiw, adjust) and using your internal flash. Also learn how to set your white balance while underwater...it really makes a difference.

HTH

 

[Empty V]

Well there are some great things and some things lacking with my camera. It has a built in Macro mode which allows me to focus to about 3/4" from my subject, that rocks! The things that are lacking is the internal flash backscatters through the housing and into the lens, so I tape it up just incase I forget to turn it off and ruin a good pic. Plus it doesn't have a white balance option. It does have an underwater mode which color corrects some of the green out and makes it look slightly more blue, I'm sill not sure if I like it yet, I guess that will just come with time. Thanks for the help!

Billy

 

[Taxgeek]

Hi Billy.
Naah, the filters will make one set correction. Since the amount of color correction needed varies drastically with depth, kelp cover, cloud cover, etc, (esp in socal since we dive in pea soup), the red/amber filters give you only a random result, because the camera can't know what is needed on a particular dive. Plus, like Alcina said, they cost you maybe like 2 stops of light, I'm not sure exactly. (I.e., will make your shutter speeds ALOT slower.) And, I never could find one for my old Canon P&S housing.

Custom white balance all the way if your camera has it. Point camera at slate, tell camera (however your camera does that) "This is white", then you're good to go. Repeat frequently. I'll go see if I can find a couple of pics with and without this to show the comparison. I know I did some tests, might have trashed the pics though. (Back in a jif.)
Taxgeek/Susan

 

[Taxgeek]

Oops, we were posting at the same time.

Bummer about the lack of custom white balance. In that case, yeah, maybe a filter would help some.

 

[Empty V]

I shoot a lot of professional "video" and trust me, I'm dying for a white balance option. I just can't do it. I didn't even know still cameras came with that option. I do know that they make a filter for my housing. It's around $60 and fits right on the end of it. Now I saw the Magic Filter, it's not made for my housing but looks very similar to Full CTO(color temperature orange) you also lose 1/2 stop, which is a common gel used in lighting for film and video. I wonder if it is that plus an UV filter. I'm sure it's not that difficult to figure out.

Anyone have any ideas?

thanks for the help!!

Billy

 

[HowardE]

I shoot a lot of professional "video" and trust me, I'm dying for a white balance option. I just can't do it. I didn't even know still cameras came with that option. I do know that they make a filter for my housing. It's around $60 and fits right on the end of it. Now I saw the Magic Filter, it's not made for my housing but looks very similar to Full CTO(color temperature orange) you also lose 1/2 stop, which is a common gel used in lighting for film and video. I wonder if it is that plus an UV filter. I'm sure it's not that difficult to figure out.

Anyone have any ideas?

thanks for the help!!

Billy

They do make a "magic filter" - Reef Photo has them http://reefphoto.com - Yes the filter is pretty much a gel that you would use in Pro-lighting. If you have the gels around, you could most certainly give them a try. Put the gel directly on your lens (inside the housing) if you're going to try that.

But for those pictures that you have... A Strobe would make all the difference in the world, more so than a "magic filter".

I didn't notice if you said... but what camera model are you using?

 

[isurus]

The current model magic filters are designed for tropical blue water and may not be ideal for cali. w/out manual white balance and/or a strobe I would consider trying to mount your torch (Although you may need to difuse it somehow). I used this to get some nicish colour using a w/b free camera before I upgraded.

 

[Gilligan]

IMHO, no on the filter. Manual white balance is the way to go. I did a comparison with and without the filter and found little difference. Using manual white balance then adjustng the photos in PS worked fine.

Using any filter that is inside the housing is out of the question if you can't move it out of the lens. It will limit you to taking only filtered photos.

I have a filter and never use it. I use my strobe when up close and manual white balance when too far away for the strobe. Works fine for me. My camera does not have RAW capability which would negate using the manual white balance.

 

[alo100]

I picked up the PADI UW photography book today, it talked about it.
The advice is using WB, and as we go to a different depth, like what was mentioned eariler in this thread, we need to do it again to make the color compensate accurately.

Besides the 1/2 stop brightness we're gonna loose, I notice that there are at least filter for blue water and filter for green water, so on and so forth. Filter can only filter out one color, thus, when we travel to different dive sites, the WB method seems to be more promising.

My 2 cents.